When the American Power Boat Association holds its annual meeting and awards banquet in Seattle January 27 - 30, Steve David, the National Champion driver of OH BOY! OBERTO/MISS MADISON, will be the
Unlimited Hydroplane inductee for 2009 into the prestigious APBA Hall of
Champions.
The Hall of Champions is the highest honorarium that can be
achieved in APBA racing.
A prominent Florida realtor who teaches college
classes in real estate, Steve is a lifelong boat racer. He has over 250 race
victories in the Limited ranks and over 500 heat wins.
A Past-President
of the American Power Boat Association, David has served the sport well both on
and off the race course.
His accomplishments in the Inboard category
include four straight National Championship Race victories in the 1.5-Litre
Stock Class with the Toyota-powered CONSTANT PRESSURE between 1988 and 1991. He
also won the Grand National Hydro Class National Championship Race with the
Chevy-powered STEELER in 1990.
Steve made his Unlimited debut in 1988
with Jim McCormick's POCKET SAVERS PLUS team and was named Rookie of the
Year.
His Unlimited career shifted into high gear in 1991 when he signed
with the Harvey Motorsports team. The association was to last for nine years.
Here was a pilot with tremendous driving ability and one who was also great in
the publicity department.
According to owner Jim Harvey, "I've had
other drivers who would complain to the press when they were upset about
something that happened in a race. I had to ride herd on them constantly. But
with Steve David, I never had that problem.
"I could walk away and go
back to work on the boat, knowing that Steve would always represent the sponsor
well and say what needed to be said to the media."
During the Steve
David years, the Harvey Motorsports team never failed to finish in the top-5 in
National High Points.
The most satisfying campaign for David and Harvey
had to be 1993 when they won the first and the last races of the season--at
Lewisville, Texas, and Honolulu, Hawaii--with two different boats named MISS
T-PLUS.
Following a brief retirement from the sport, Steve David
returned to active duty in 2001 as driver of the community-owned OH BOY!
OBERTO/MISS MADISON (U-6) from southern Indiana.
This set the stage for
a richly sentimental triumph in the 2001 Indiana Governor's Cup at Madison.
Steve made a perfectly timed start in the Final Heat and went on to win all the
marbles, while holding off a persistent challenge from second-place Greg Hopp in
ZNETIX. This marked the first victory on home waters by the U-6 team in thirty
years.
On the day following the win at Madison, the headline for the
local newspaper consisted of two words: "Oh Boy!"
MISS MADISON had long
been a competitive presence in Unlimited hydroplane racing. But not until 2005
did a MISS M pilot succeed in winning the National High Point Driver
Championship. Steve David achieved that distinction in addition to winning
"Thunder On The Ohio" at Evansville, Indiana.
David followed that up
with a second High Point Driver title in 2006. But the boat was getting
tired.
No one was happier than Steve with the announcement that a brand
new "Floating Chamber of Commerce" for the City of Madison would debut in 2007,
thanks to a significant contribution by the sponsoring Oberto Sausage
Company.
In 2007, the new OH BOY! OBERTO/MISS MADISON (U-6) finished an
overall first or second at five of the six races on the American Boat Racing
Association (now the H1 Unlimited) tour.
The first four races of the
season belonged to the Seattle-based MISS E-LAM PLUS (U-16) and driver Dave
Villwock. The E-LAM team definitely had its act together. People began to
wonder, "Is the U-16 going to sweep the season? Can anybody stop Villwock?"
It fell to OH BOY! OBERTO to snap MISS E-LAM PLUS's win streak. After
having finished second to the U-16 in three straight races, the U-6 won the
Chevrolet Cup at Seattle and the Bill Muncey Cup at San Diego. In both races,
Steve David made a perfect start where it counted--in the Final Heat.
OBERTO led from wire-to-wire in the Seattle finale and held off a
dynamic challenge from second-place HOSS MORTGAGE INVESTORS. Rookie David Bryant
made Steve David work for it every inch of the way. The outcome was in doubt
right down to the checkered flag.
The finale at San Diego on Mission
Bay was another classic. OBERTO grabbed the inside lane before the start and
forced the rest of the field to run a wider--and-longer--track. Second-place
Jeff Bernard, driver of FORMULABOATS.COM (U-5), went all out but couldn't catch
the front-running U-6.
The 2008 campaign was the one that Madisonians
had long awaited. The community-owned U-6 finally won the National High Point
Team Championship.
Steve David had won two Driver Championships. But the
team had never finished higher than second in National Points. Steve wanted the
Team Championship for the city and for Oberto. And he got it.
David
started in 21 heats of competition in 2008, finished first in 10 of them, was
second eight times, third once, fourth twice, qualified fastest at four out of
six races, and won the Tri-Cities Columbia Cup.
At season's end, the
U-6 had 7,503 accumulated points, compared to 6,825 for second-place
FORMULABOATS.COM (U-5). This entitled the OH BOY! OBERTO/MISS MADISON team to
carry the coveted U-1 registration number, indicative of their status as
defending National Champion.
Steve then proceeded to make it two Team
Championships in a row for OH BOY! OBERTO and MISS MADISON in 2009 with a total
point accumulation of 7970, compared to 7735 for second-place MISS E-LAM
PLUS.
David started in 26 heats of competition in 2009, finished first in
11 of them, was second nine times, third three times, sixth once, and again won
the Tri-Cities Columbia Cup.
Steve flipped the boat in a preliminary
heat at the season-concluding Oryx Cup in Doha, Qatar, but rebounded to finish
second in the finale and claim the overall season title. David did this despite
an as-yet-undiagnosed broken fibula cap in his right (throttle) leg.
The
2009 Hall of Champions investiture will take place January 29-30, 2010, during
the APBA National Convention in Seattle,
Washington.
